Retracted Publications in the Biomedical Literature from Open Access Journals

Science and Engineering Ethics - The number of articles published in open access journals (OAJs) has increased dramatically in recent years. Simultaneously, the quality of publications in these...     

Correctable Myths About Research Misconduct in the Biomedical Sciences

Science and Engineering Ethics - A recent National Academy report on research integrity noted that policies are not evidence-based, with no formal entity responsible to attend to this deficit. Here...     

警惕迷信宣传品的新动向

信一:说明书中夹带的迷信宣传品　　科学与无神论编辑部:　　我是国家机关一名退休职工,前不久在本市一家挺信得过的药店买了一盒&;#215;&;#215;宝(按:妇科保健药品).心想,就凭这家药店的名声,相信不会出什么问题.打开药盒,和说明书放在一起的,是一张宣传品.那宣传品上,印的是十二生肖和人的性格、婚姻、工作以及命运的关系.谁都知道,这已经是上千年以前的迷信了,这些年又有所抬头,但却想不到它会被夹在药品中推销.生肖只有十二个,中国人却有十几亿,差不多一个生肖都有一亿人,难道他们的性格、命运都一样吗?我不知这家药厂是怎么想的,这样做对他们药品的销售有什么好处?……     

生命科学中的"扮演上帝":合理性与责任性

"扮演上帝"是一个主要用来描述生命科学及生物技术发展并对其进行社会评价的习语.在生存与发展意义上,人类有充分的理由去扮演上帝.随着越来越多的生命秘密被揭示,人类获得了越来越多的似神力量.人类应该扮演上帝,人类能够扮演上帝,人类不得不去扮演上帝,扮演上帝已成为人类的宿命.基于自然界和生命世界的复杂性以及知识的有限性,人们在扮演上帝时要有更多的耐心和责任.     

Perpetuation of Retracted Publications Using the Example of the Scott S. Reuben Case: Incidences,Reasons and Possible Improvements

In 2009, Scott S. Reuben was convicted of fabricating data, which lead to 25 of his publications being retracted. Although it is clear that the perpetuation of retracted articles negatively effects the appraisal of evidence, the extent to which retracted literature is cited had not previously been investigated. In this study, to better understand the perpetuation of discredited research, we examine the number of citations of Reuben’s articles within 5 years of their retraction. Citations of Reuben’s retracted articles were assessed using the Web of Science Core Collection (Thomson Reuters, NY). All citing articles were screened to discriminate between articles in which Reuben’s work was quoted as retracted, and articles in which his data was wrongly cited without any note of the retraction status. Twenty of Reuben’s publications had been cited 274 times between 2009 and 1024. In 2014, 45 % of the retracted articles had been cited at least once. In only 25.8 % of citing articles was it clearly stated that Reuben’s work had been retracted. Annual citations decreased from 108 in 2009 to 18 in 2014; however, the percentage of publications correctly indicating the retraction status also declined. The percentage of citations in top-25 %-journals, as well as the percentage of citations in journals from Reuben’s research area, declined sharply after 2009. Our data show that even 5 years after their retraction, nearly half of Reuben’s articles are still being quoted and the retraction status is correctly mentioned in only one quarter of the citations.     

Understanding Stress and Life Satisfaction for Children of Clergy: A Retrospective Study

Because clergy children live within a unique family context, the goal of this study was to examine the individual and family stressors that adult clergy children experience while growing up and how individual and family coping resources, along with the adult clergy children’s perceptions of their experiences or sense of coherence, have affected the perceived life satisfaction. The present study examined the life satisfaction of clergy and non-clergy children, both retrospectively as adolescents and currently as adults, to determine the stability of their perceived life satisfaction over time. Compared to a sample of adult non-clergy children, adult clergy children experienced greater levels of individual and family stress along with a lower sense of coherence and less life satisfaction as adolescents. A path analysis of the model based on family stress theory indicates that sense of coherence provided the greatest total effect on participants’ life satisfaction as adolescents, whereas life satisfaction as adolescents provided the greatest total effect on life satisfaction as adults. These findings provide several implications for research and practice.     

生命科学前沿的特征与意义

生命科学前沿是一个灰色系统和动态系统,随着其发展的演进,前沿领域与热点总处于动态或交替之中.通过对生命科学前沿领域的分析和界定,提出当今生命科学前沿领域的代表为基因组学、系统生物学等七大领域;并以科学系统论的观点分析七大前沿具有的系统特性和作为大科学的特点及意义.     

Historical and Philosophical Perspectives on Experimental Practice in Medicine and the Life Sciences

The aim of this paper is to discuss a key question in the history and philosophy of medicine, namely how scholars should treat the practices and experimental hypotheses of modern life science laboratories. The paper seeks to introduce some prominent historiographical methods and theoretical approaches associated with biomedical research. Although medical scientists need no convincing that experimentation has a significant function in their laboratory work, historians, philosophers, and sociologists long neglected its importance when examining changes in medical theories or progress in scientific knowledge. The reason appears to have been the academic influence of the then dominant tradition in the history of ideas, but was also due to a misconception of what could usefully be termed the view on “historical ontology.” During the last two decades, there have been many books and research articles that have turned towards the subject, so that the study of experimental practice has become a major trend in the contemporary history and philosophy of medicine. A closer look at the issue of laboratory research shows that concepts in medicine and the life sciences cannot be understood as historically constant, free-standing ideas, but have to be regarded as dependent on local research settings. They often carry particular “social memories” with them and thus acquire important ethical implications.     

Possibilities, Intentions and Threats: Dual Use in the Life Sciences Reconsidered

Due to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the anthrax letters of a few weeks later, the concept of dual use has spread widely in the life sciences during the past decade. This article is aimed at a clarification of the dual use concept and its scope of application for the life sciences. Such a clarification would greatly facilitate the work of policymakers seeking to ensure security while avoiding undesirable interventions of government in the conduct of science. The article starts with an overview of the main developments in life sciences in relation to dual use. This is illustrated by discussions on synthetic biology and dual use. The findings lead to a reconsideration of the dual use concept. An area in need of further attention is to what extent threats and intentions should have impact on the definition of dual use. Possible threats are analyzed against the background of the phenomenon of securitization of health care and life sciences: considering these sectors of society in security terms. Some caveats that should be taken into account in a dual use policy are described. An acceptable, adequate and applicable definition of the dual use concept could help researchers, universities, companies and policy makers. Such a definition should build upon, but go beyond, the view developed in the influential Fink-report, which concentrates on the so-called ??experiments of concern??, e.g. experiments that enhance the virulence of pathogens (National Research Council of the National Academies 2004) It will be argued that??in addition to these more technical aspects??a definition of dual use should include the aspect of threats and intentions.     

Dual-Use Research Codes of Conduct: Lessons from the Life Sciences

This paper considers multiple meanings of the expression ‘dual use’ and examines lessons to be learned from the life sciences when considering ethical and policy issues associated with the dual-use nature of nanotechnology (and converging technologies). After examining recent controversial dual-use experiments in the life sciences, it considers the potential roles and limitations of science codes of conduct for addressing concerns associated with dual-use science and technology. It concludes that, rather than being essentially associated with voluntary self-governance of the scientific community, codes of conduct should arguably be part of a broader regulatory oversight system.     

Retracted: A comparison of impulsivity and sensation seeking in pathological gamblers and skydivers

The following article from Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, “A comparison of impulsivity and sensation seeking in pathological gamblers and skydivers” by Helga Myrseth, Renate Tverå, Susanne Hagatun and Camilla Lindgren, published online on 19th September 2011 in Wiley Online Library ( http://www.wileyonlinelibrary.com ), has been retracted by agreement between the authors, the journal Editor in Chief, Professor Jerker Rönnberg, and Blackwell Publishing Ltd. The retraction has been agreed due to the inclusion of certain data within the published work that has been used without confirming with Dr. Helge Molde that the data could be utilized in the study as it had been used in previous studies.     

The Biomedical Disciplines and the Structure of Biomedical and Clinical Knowledge

The relation between biomedical knowledge and clinicalknowledge is discussed by comparing their respectivestructures. The knowledge of a disease as a biologicalphenomenon is constructed by the interaction of factsand theories from the main biomedical disciplines:epidemiology, diagnostics, clinical trial, therapydevelopment and pathogenesis. Although these facts andtheories are based on probabilities andextrapolations, the interaction provides a reliableand coherent structure, comparable to a Kuhnianparadigma. In the structure of clinical knowledge,i.e. knowledge of the patient with the disease, notonly biomedical knowledge contributes to the structurebut also economic and social relations, ethics andpersonal experience. However, the interaction betweeneach of the participating ``knowledges' in clinicalknowledge is not based on mutual dependency andaccumulation of different arguments from each, as inbiomedical knowledge, but on competition and partialexclusion. Therefore, the structure of biomedicalknowledge is different from that of clinicalknowledge. This difference is used as the basis for adiscussion in which the place of technology,evidence-based medicine and the gap between scientificand clinical knowledge are evaluated.     

Incidence of Data Duplications in a Randomly Selected Pool of Life Science Publications

Since the solution to many public health problems depends on research, it is critical for the progress and well-being for the patients that we can trust the scientific literature. Misconduct and poor laboratory practice in science threatens the scientific progress, leads to loss of productivity and increased healthcare costs, and endangers lives of patients. Data duplication may represent one of challenges related to these problems. In order to estimate the frequency of data duplication in life science literature, a systematic screen through 120 original scientific articles published in three different cancer related journals [journal impact factor (IF) <5, 5–10 and >20] was completed. The study revealed a surprisingly high proportion of articles containing data duplication. For the IF < 5 and IF > 20 journals, 25 % of the articles were found to contain data duplications. The IF 5–10 journal showed a comparable proportion (22.5 %). The proportion of articles containing duplicated data was comparable between the three journals and no significant correlation to journal IF was found. The editorial offices representing the journals included in this study and the individual authors of the detected articles were contacted to clarify the individual cases. The editorial offices did not reply and only 1 out of 29 cases were apparently clarified by the authors, although no supporting data was supplied. This study questions the reliability of life science literature, it illustrates that data duplications are widespread and independent of journal impact factor and call for a reform of the current peer review and retraction process of scientific publishing.     

Visualizing the Good Life: A Cross-Cultural Analysis

How can we visualize similarity and difference across cultural conceptions of a good or worthy life? To examine the internal structure of such conceptions, we asked 584 university students from mainland China and Canada to indicate the relative importance of 30 elements or criteria commonly used in defining a good life. Statistical comparison and multidimensional scaling were used to reveal the form and extent of group commonalities and differences on the criteria and their meaning in relation to underlying dimensions of individual and cultural variation. The results suggested that South Asian Canadians were more oriented towards moral, spiritual, and beneficent concerns in envisioning a good life than were the mainland Chinese and Western European Canadians. The Chinese, for their part, tended to emphasize practical, prudential, and socially defined goods. This contrasted with the Western European Canadians, who showed more preference for personally defined, internal goods. East Asian Canadians fell between Chinese and Western European Canadians in overall orientation, reflecting their biculturality. All groups placed heavy emphasis on close and enduring relationships.     

浅析消费领域中的审美现象

随着经济文化的发展和生活水平的提高,消费领域中出现了很多与审美相关的消费。本文透过这些现象分析消费者进行审美消费的内在动因,并且探讨一些应对思路。     

诺贝尔生理学或医学奖获得者科学素质分析

通过对诺贝尔生理学或医学奖184位获得者科学素质的形成过程中,高校学习经历、最高学位授予单位、教授首聘年龄与单位等可以量化的指标进行测度分析,发现他们具有超越一般人的多维度的科学素质,具有学术前沿的国际视野,能把握研究方向的社会意义.